Selling with tenants in - yes or wait?

[FakeFlamingo]

We have a house that we need to urgently sell. Tenants are scheduled to leave in a month. Under normal circumstances I would ideally wait & sell an empty house which I could stage as empty/touched up or place some furniture in it to make it more presentable.

However with Brexit/covid/winter/recession, it makes sense to not lose any time if we can help it.

Tenants are a large joint family & 3 of the 4 bedrooms is occupied by a couple & 1 bedroom by a single person. They keep it tidy but they do have a lot of 'stuff'. The house was rented out unfurnished so they have their furniture which isn't entirely suitable for my house.

Any ideas on how do we proceed? Put it up now? Or hold back a month. If we proceed what measures do it take to make it as appealing as possible? Tenants are generally cooperative but they have 1 baby & many couples so difficult to get everyone on the same page. Plus they are probably focussed on their own imminent move.

Anyone in this position & what have you done?

Sorry - 3 of the 4 bedrooms are occupied by couples. One person is single & has the 4th bedroom

Unless you're selling with a sitting tenant, no-one will pay for surveys / spend money on it with tenants in situ in this market. Better to get them out, be ready to go straight away with estate agents etc.

@Africa2go - the tenants have given notice & they have signed their tenancy for their next rental (we know the owners of that house). We didn't want to market until we had notice from the tenants.

Do you think it's not good even in such a scenario?

I would wait until the house is empty.

Personally I would wait a month, you could do all the preliminary stuff like find a estate agent and solicitor you like and then blitz the property to get it 'market ready' as soon as they go and hopefully have it on the market very quickly. I bought a property that was on the market whilst being rented out to a tenant some years ago and the tenant was clearly very comfortable there and had no intention of helping the landlord to an easy sale. I persevered, partly because I'm stubborn (!) and party because I could see the potential of the property, but it was a lovely flat that had been on the market for about six months before we put an offer in on it. I'm convinced that was at least partly because of the tenant. Even with an impeccable tenant they are never going to keep the property as clean and tidy as you would wish for viewings, and its important not to underestimate the effect all their clutter with have on prospective viewers; often people assume a house with lots of clutter just doesn't have enough storage and move on.

It's a month, just wait.

I was a tenant with a small baby and a LL who wanted to sell. I'm not an awkward person but it is inconvenient having people view the house and keep it presentable so I only agreed to viewings on a Saturday morning which I know the EA were annoyed about. Your tenants can refuse viewings and may choose to do so and even if they don't it sounds like the house will not be presentable.

You are all echoing my thoughts & concerns.

What do you think about the month's delay in a world when the property market is cooling down rapidly. I feel that we're already late, however we didn't have a choice as we were in the fixed term period.

@FakeFlamingo a solicitor will normally advise a buyer to wait until the property is empty before exchange. If you are in a good location, its a cheap price, other investors might want to buy it as a buy to let (and those are the types of buyers you'll probably attract anyway), then you might be ok and they'd commit to searches / surveys / solicitor fees whilst (multiple) tenants are still in.

However, if its a family area, a family type house and you have competition in terms of other family houses etc, wait. People will be reluctant to financially commit to a purchase which could fall through because tenants, for whatever reason, refuse to move out. The Courts have a ban on evictions at the moment so if your tenants do refuse to move out, there is nothing you can do. Wait until they are out.

Could you get photos of the outside of the house while there's still some decent light etc if the tenants didn't mind? If it's a saleable house I think it will be a lot better with it being new on the market once it's empty. Otherwise if it doesn't sell right away you are going to be stuck with an old listing with new photos etc?

You're not likely to achieve the outcome you want by rushing ahead. You will probably ending up pissing off your tenants and put off any potential buyers with the current situation with the house. For the sake of a month, just wait.

If you put the property on the market in a month's time buyers will still be able to complete in time to benefit from the Stamp Duty Holiday, and if its correctly priced and well presented I don't think the month's delay will make much difference. Better that you put it on in a month's time when you can present it at its best, rather than put it on now when it might make a less than favourable first impression.

The EA is suggesting we go ahead & list it. But my views are similar to what you lot are saying.

I hadn't considered that tenants might not allow viewings when favourable to potential buyers. Also while they keep the house tidy in general they might be in 'pack up' mode in this last month so not as tidy.

Lots to think about. Thank you everyone.

Great suggestion about outside pics when the light is good. Tenants won't mind & we are there for some repairs this week anyway.

Could you offer them a financial incentive to move out earlier? I suppose it’s difficult with seven adults though.

Blitz the house as soon as they’ve gone and get it listed quickly.

@Reddog1 - we've tried this too, but they get their new house on 26th which means even if they do move sooner it's only 5 days sooner. We tried to ask them to do that but they have work commitments etc so can't flex for our sake. I guess we have to resign ourselves to waiting for a month!

I would wait until it's empty; even if you have interest, you'll have people worried the tenants won't leave/will leave it in a state etc, so much better to wait until they're gone (as per your gut feeling!) touch the place up and then market it. :) Good luck!

I wouldn't even consider a house with tenants in situ, even if they are due to leave as it only takes for one of them to decide not to leave and the whole thing is stuffed. You'll probably find if you list now many people will feel the same

Could the estate agents not start putting the feelers out to people on their database in a couple of weeks ('there is a great 4 bed property coming on the market when the tenants leave in a couple of weeks'....) and then list properly when they have gone.

You have time so could have everything lined up ready to go the minute they leave (so cleaners in the following day, estate agent photos booked in etc)

@gurglebelly @ZoomRoom - yes I'll do that, thank you for the useful suggestions.

I have a few pictures of my empty house, might list a few days early with those to get people interested & then update with agent's pictures when the house is photo shoot ready.